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Tijou family   

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A letter by Thomas Tijou

This is a typed copy of a letter Thomas Tijou, son of Jean Tijou, sent to a French Protestant Charity School in 1780.

The humble Petition of Thomas Tijou

Sheweth

            That your Petitioner is the Son of John Tijou of St. Garmans in France, who was forced to flee from thence in the time of the General Persecution of the Protestants, and came to England, where he was employ’d by his Majesty King William to furnish his Palace at Hampton Court with the whole of the Iron Worke, which Workes not being finished till in the reign of Queen Ann, only a part was paid for, and there remains great Sums due to your honours Petitioner, in right of his said Father, which he has made frequent and assiduous Application for in vain. That your Petitioner has worked at his Business as a Small Worker in Gold upwards of Fifty Years, but latterly not able to pursue it through Defect of Sight, being near Eighty Years of Age, by which Your Petitioner is reduced to the utmost indigence, which together with the loss of his patrimonal Right renders him a real Object of Charity, and the more so having three indigent fatherless Grand Children dependant upon him for Support.

Wherefore Your Petitioner most humbly prays, that he may be considered as an Object of this Charity, and that two of his said Grand-Daughters may be admitted into your Charity School, and your Petitioner being in the most distrest Circumstances, that Your Honours would bestow on him Some Small Donation.

         And your Petitioner for in duty bound will ever pray &c

                                                  Thomas Tijou

This Petition was presented by Wm. Wright Esqr.

Saturday July 8 1780. being [word illegible] a subscriber to

The mentioned Charity School. [1]

Footnotes

[1] The original letter is held by the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland.